26,000 Young People Spoke Up About Charleston. Here’s What They Said.

By Ben Kassoy

“Not safe on the streets, not safe in school, not safe at home. Not even safe at church. This is the world we live in. When will black lives matter?”

— Kaila, 16

On June 17, a white man killed nine black people in a Charleston, South Carolina church.

Black lives matter. And so do the voices of young people.

Consumed with sadness, disgust, fear, and confusion, young people searched for a place to express their complex and intense feelings. Yesterday, we were that place.

Our team texted over 2.4 million DoSomething.org members and emailed 1.2 million others, aged 13 to 25. We asked them to respond with one word to describe their feelings about the shooting. If they had more to say, we asked for longer responses. Here is a word cloud representing the more than 26,000 young people who texted back.

We dedicated our homepage to amplifying our members’ voices, rotating through hundreds of quotes like these.

Some members expressed sadness:

”It fills my heart with sorrow to hear that anyone could have enough hate toward one group of people to kill. My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected.” — Krysten, 16

Others responded with anger and fear:

“It’s disgusting that we have to be afraid in our places of worship. Where can we be safe? Where can we be free? Where can we be black?” — Patrick, 21

Many white members expressed their shame:

“I am ashamed to share the same skin color as the shooter. I’m disgusted that those with love in their hearts cannot live without persecution.” — Angel, 18

Others took a “colorblind” stance:

“We shouldn’t type ‘a white man killed 9 black people.’ We tend to focus on race and make it a racial situation when it’s just hate between brethren.” — Katia, 21

And a small group of others responded with blatant racism:

“9 less niggers” — anonymous

Instead of deleting these responders off our list, we wanted to show them that we were listening, that their words affect real people. So our member experience associate, Hannah, (along with a fleet of interns) responded to each message individually.

Honestly, as a black woman, what you said really hurts me. My name is Hannah, and I text DoSomething.org members (like you) so they can take action.

You can read more responses. And you can take action by joining our virtual poetry slam about Charleston and other race-related experiences. Have another idea of what we can all do? Text ACTION to 38383.

Originally published at blog.dosomething.org.

Ben Kassoy is the Managing Editor of DoSomething.org and the coauthor of eight books. He’s also written for Glamour, Maxim, Details.com, Women’s Health Magazine online, and a host of others. Ben tweets here.